


Stitches

by ScreechTheMighty



Series: some things you will remember [1]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Bullshit self-indulgent AU, Devoid of Context, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Jack is alive somehow fight me, Stitches, post season one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 01:02:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5071960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScreechTheMighty/pseuds/ScreechTheMighty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Blood, scotch, sutures: another night with the Murdocks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, for some context: I've been thinking a lot about an AU where jack gets brought back to life because reasons and I just HAD to write something for it, so here we go. Here is a thing I wrote for it. Right now we're in the "Jack knows Matt is Daredevil and is sleeping on his floor until they figure things out" phase of things. Shout out to tumblr user just-a-storyteller for indulging my Jack Murdock feels. You enabler.

He should’ve known better. It had been twenty years, sure, but after ten of Jack knowing every time Matt so much as _sneezed_ funny in his bedroom down the hall, he _really_ should’ve known better.

“You’re back early,” Jack grumbled into his pillow.

The creaking of footsteps in the living room froze. “…sorry,” Matt said quietly. “Did I wake you?”

“I wasn’t asleep.” Jack got off the mattress on the floor and stood, ignoring the ache in his back. There was some light coming from that giantass window; he could see Matt’s outline, but not his face. “You okay? What time is it?”

“…it’s, uh…four? Five? I’m not wearing a watch, Dad.”

“Right, right.” Matt sat down on the bed. “How many’d you get?”

“I don’t keep count… _ow._ ”

The last part was a hiss. He probably thought Jack couldn’t hear. Again; should’ve known better. “Matt,” Jack said carefully, “what happened?”

 _He can keep a hell of a secret._ That’s what Nelson said during their sit down a few weeks ago. Whatever secrets Matt might’ve been keeping, he wasn’t good at keeping them from Jack. “I might’ve…gotten…hit in the face with a bottle,” Matt mumbled.

 _Jesus Christ, Matt._ “How bad?” Jack asked as he climbed out of bed. Matt was struggling out of the mask when he sat down next to him. He smelled like blood. “Are you still bleeding?”

“I think…” Matt finally got that thing off his face. The blood smell got stronger as Jack heard another hiss of pain. “I might need stitches.”

“Wh…why didn’t you go to that nurse friend of yours? Claire?”

“She’s out of town. It’s nothing…”

“You got stuff for stitches?”

“…under the kitchen sink. Left side.”

The kit was exactly where Matt said it would be. It was impressive. Better than what Jack remembered having back in the day. “What is half this shit anyway?” he asked as he set it down at the table.

“You’d have to ask Claire. She put it together for me.” Jack heard another pained gasp from the bedroom. “I’d make a guess at it, but I can’t see it, so…”

 _Smartass_. By the time Jack found anything resembling a suture and got some lights on, Matt was out of the suit and into his pajamas. Too damn early in the morning for real sleep, not that it’d stop him from telling Matt to get some once he was stitched up. “You got anything to drink?”

Matt laughed. “Uh, in the fridge, and in the pantry to the right. Depending. Kind of early, isn’t it?”

“Depends on what kind of day you’ve been having.” _And yours is starting with stitches, so I’ll damn well have a drink if I want._ Beer was in the fridge; scotch in the pantry. That was what he poured two glasses of. “Don’t want my hands shaking.”

That got another laugh out of Matt. “Yeah, this is my face we’re talking about.” He remembered. Jack wasn’t surprised. Matt had always remembered a lot. “Dad, you don’t have to do this.”

“You want to stitch yourself up? Got you a glass.” He waited until Matt sat down and held out his hand on the table before setting it down. “You got anything stuck in there?”

Matt shook his head as he took a sip of the scotch. He kept a cloth pressed against his face with his free hand; it was already covered in blood. “Picked it all out already.”

“Anything I can do for…?”

“It’s not my first rodeo with stitches.” Matt grimaced. “Sorry…”

“For what? Not keeping your hands up? That’s on you, kiddo. Don’t apologize to me.” He was trying not to freak out about this, he _really_ was. Matt could take care of himself. Matt could read and do lawyer shit and cross the street without help. Matt had been doing… _this_ , the Daredevil thing, for a while now. He could handle it. But he was also bleeding. Head wounds bled a lot, Jack knew that. It wasn’t the amount of blood that bothered him. It was the fact that it was there at all. “Let me look.”

Matt grimaced and pulled the cloth away. The cut was across his cheek, near the jaw. It wasn’t too deep. It was bleeding like anything, and painful-looking, but it probably wouldn’t scar too bad. “Could be worse.” Jack remembered the ropes: clean it first, then stitches. Matt grimaced slightly as the cloth touched his skin, but held still. “What’s your cover story gonna be this time?”

“Hate crime, maybe?” Jack laughed, startled. “Too much?”

“ _Yeah._ Just say you tripped or… _something_ , God. _Hate crime._ ” Jack shook his head. “And Nelson? What’re you gonna tell him?”

Matt shrugged. “Cane bandit.”

“ _What?!_ ”

“Cane…” Now Matt was laughing. “Bandit. You…you had to be there.”

“ _Jesus._ ” He was probably never going to understand that. Just like whatever was so damn funny about avocados. “All right, all right, hold still…”

This was going to be the hard part. He remembered how much it hurt, how his hands would shake afterwards as the pain faded. He braced himself for seeing pain on Matt’s face, but he didn’t see anything. Matt set his jaw before Jack started, and didn’t make a sound as the stitches went in. Didn’t tremble. Didn’t frown or wince. Aside from a sharp inhale as the needle went through the first time and the way his eyes kept darting around, there was no sign he was feeling any of it. Matt said his sense of touch was sensitive, which meant either he was keeping that scream stamped down _real_ hard or he was used to…

Jack finished up the next stitch and stopped, pressing the heel of his palm into his eyes, hard enough to make himself see stars. “Dad…?”

“I’m fine, Mattie. It’s fine. Almost done. One more.”

“I’m okay, Dad.”

“I know, kiddo.”

“I’m _okay._ ”

He said it so strongly that Jack wanted to believe him. But Matt was still bleeding, and getting himself stitched up without one damn complaint. That wasn’t okay.

Jack checked to make sure his hands were still before he started on the last stitch. “…hey.”

“Hmm?”

“Look. I get it, okay, I get it, you’re grown up…you make your own decisions. But…” Matt didn’t even blink when the needle went through. “I just need to know…”

He finished off the last stitch and dropped the tools onto the table, between their glasses of scotch. It left splatters of blood there. Small ones, but he saw them. “Was it worth it?” Jack asked finally. “I don’t need to know what they did, I just need to know if it was worth it. If you tell me it was worth it, I’ll believe you.”

Matt frowned, finally, at the question. “…It was worth it. It’s always worth it.”

Jack tried to smile, even though Matt couldn’t see it. “You need to do a better job keeping your guard up,” he said. “Gotta keep that face of yours intact for your day job. Let’s get you cleaned up…” He drained what was left of his scotch. “Then  _you_ can go back to bed.”

“Dad…”

“Don’t argue with me, mister.” Water and a towel for the blood. He remembered that, too. “You need to sleep.”

Matt sighed. “Fine, fine.” He drained his glass easily. It was nothing like when he was a kid and gagged after one sip. “Am I grounded?”

“Not this time, but if you keep running your mouth…” Jack’s smile got a bit more genuine as he stood and leaned forward to kiss Matt’s forehead. “Smartass.”

“Love you, Dad.”

“Love you too, Matt.”

Back in the day, he’d hoped he’d never have to clean blood off Matt’s face. Or stitch him up. Tonight, he’d done both. He felt like he should’ve been more scared about that. If not _that_ , then the bruises forming on Matt’s knuckles, and the other ones Jack couldn’t see.

He was scared, but not the way he thought he’d be. Because he hadn’t been lying earlier. He did believe Matt. And if Matt said it was worth it…

 _If you’re gonna get knocked down, get knocked down doing the right thing._ Jack sighed as he tossed the bloody towel into the sink. _I told him that. Guess I only have myself to blame._

“You’re gonna have to explain the cane bandit thing to me tomorrow, okay?”

“Mm-hmm.” Matt was already half asleep. “’Kay.”

Jack could’ve gone back to bed, too. Probably should’ve—God knew if Matt were awake then, he would’ve been telling Jack to go to sleep. But he was out, dead asleep with the covers pulled up to his ears. Just like when he was a kid.

Jack sat on the edge of the bed and stared at the line of stitches on his son’s face.

Matt didn’t make a sound until his alarm went off at seven.

**Author's Note:**

> "Cane bandit" is a reference to [this](http://missamericats.tumblr.com/post/116514378485/things-to-imagine-matt-grumpily-retracing-his), one of my favorite tumblr posts ever of all time.


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